But the door was open, and, oh man, had Destiny ever been pissed about that.

  Leaning his head back against the thinly padded wood that passed for a headboard, he smiled at the memory as he reached for the glass of water next to his bed.

  When he’d pulled into the motel parking lot, she’d had her helmet off before he’d even dismounted, scrambling off the back of the bike to follow him into the office.

  “We need a room for the night,” he’d told the sleepy-eyed woman at the counter.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Destiny had demanded. “Two rooms. We need two rooms.”

  “How about a double?” He’d attempted to bargain, knowing the longer the discussion continued the bigger the impression they’d make on the clerk. Something he wanted to avoid at all costs. The Nuadians might not pick up Destiny’s trail, but he didn’t want to bet her safety on that.

  “No. No, that’s not happening.” She’d crossed her arms and her perky little mouth had gone all hard line. “Two rooms.”

  “Fine, you win,” he’d said, relenting, and she had walked away, taking a seat in the lobby. “Two connecting rooms.”

  The opening he glanced toward now had been the second argument of the evening.

  “What do you mean we’re leaving the door open?” she’d squeaked. “I don’t know you from Adam. How am I supposed to sleep with a strange man able to just walk in my room any time he wants to?”

  “Better me than that guy in the parking lot, don’t you think?” He’d seen the fear dance through her eyes and momentarily felt guilt at his words. Still, it was for her own good. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on. You still have your privacy, but I need to know if someone tries to get to you. Understand?”

  She’d nodded mutely and taken the T-shirt he held out for her, disappearing behind the door to her bathroom.

  The same T-shirt she slept in right now. His T-shirt, wrapped around those naked creamy curves…

  Only the rattling of his cell phone vibrating along the surface of the wooden bedside table kept his thoughts from following that dangerous path. He grabbed it and pushed the talk button.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, it’s Peter. I have the info you wanted, but…”

  “But what?”

  Peter Hale was the best researcher on the payroll at Coryell Enterprises and even better, Jesse liked him personally. They’d frequently gone out for a beer or two after a long workout at the gym. And although he could be a stickler for detail, once you got Peter on a trail, he didn’t give up.

  “I can’t find any active file on this Noble woman. What’s up with that?”

  “Let’s just say we’re flying under the radar on this one.”

  “Okeydokey, boss man. Whatever you say.” Peter’s skepticism rang through loud and clear. “I have someone on the way to pick up the items you requested and I’m sending the text on what I found through to your phone now. Anything else off the grid you want?”

  “Yeah. Patch me through to Ian McCullough.”

  “You got it.”

  The line hummed with music as Jesse waited for his call to transfer over. Ian was a Guardian like him, only Ian had been at this for centuries. He was also a good friend of the family and the quickest way for Jesse to get word to Dallyn about tonight’s strange encounter with the Nuadian Fae.

  He hoped Dallyn would be able to give him some input as to what the hell was going on.

  Because something told him, the way things felt, he was going to need all the input he could get.

  A thick curtain of mist surrounded the car she rode in, but far from being frightening, it reassured Destiny she was back in the vision. Up ahead, the swirling gray tendrils cleared just enough for her to read the road sign they approached. ARIZONA, printed in block letters above a big yellow star and below that the words THE GRAND CANYON STATE WELCOMES YOU.

  The sign whipped past and Destiny became aware of a growing feeling of claustrophobia, as if she’d overstayed her welcome in this part of the vision.

  As always, her body felt heavy, like she tried to move through thick mud. Think! What had she learned?

  Leah was somewhere in Arizona, but that alone wasn’t enough information to find her sister. Arizona was a big place. There had to be more.

  “Go on.” It was her own voice pressing for the vision to continue.

  The mist roiled around her and suddenly she wasn’t in the car any longer, instead an enormous computer screen filled her mind. A computer screen showing a list of her incoming email. The words were jumbled, unreadable, as if they’d been typed at random with fingers on all the wrong keys. All but one message. That heading was clear, the words sharp and distinct, catching her attention and riveting her to it.

  If you want to see your sister alive…

  A hand, her hand, floated toward a keyboard and pressed the ENTER button. The screen flickered and the text of the message shimmered into view, only to be instantly obscured by a vividly bright light flashing over the screen.

  “No!”

  The word was torn from her as she tried to sweep the light away, one hand shading her eyes, the other fluttering in front of the monitor. She grabbed onto its sides as the light engulfed the screen. It covered her hands and burned its way up her arms, a hot sting sent as an unfriendly warning to leave now.

  The solid form of the monitor slipped from her fingers. Gone. Panic overcame her as she flailed her arms around the brilliant white void in a desperate attempt the find the machine.

  An exercise in futility, she knew. Once the light closed in, nothing she did would make the slightest difference until she’d fulfilled that part of the vision.

  So close. She’d been so close to finding Leah this time.

  Tears of frustration burned her eyes and trickled out the corners, slithering down into her hair as she lay on her back, trying to force the sleep to return and with it the vision.

  But the vision was gone, leaving her helpless, frustrated, and alone, as always.

  Destiny’s eyes flew open and she confronted a dark almost equal to that of her vision. Except that this dark quickly faded, pierced by a sliver of light. A tiny slice of illumination, as if curtains hadn’t been fully drawn.

  Not alone. Jesse was here, no farther away than the opening in the dark that separated their rooms. The opening she’d complained so heartily about earlier to-night. The opening that now seemed her only connection to safety.

  She lay still, straining to hear his breathing, but no sound reached her ears over the pounding of her own heart.

  He wouldn’t have left her, would he? Surely not. Just her constant paranoia. After all, she’d dreamed he would help her. He couldn’t leave. Not yet.

  She heard footsteps outside, a lone person walking along the sidewalk. She held her breath, terror overtaking her as the steps drew nearer. By the time the figure passed by her window, blocking the narrow strip of light for an instant, she felt as if she might scream.

  Was it him? Had that awful man found her so soon?

  The steps continued without a pause, moving farther away until at last she heard a door slam shut.

  Someone in one of the other rooms. Nothing more.

  She lay unmoving, sweat beading on her forehead until all was silence once again. Slipping from her bed, she stared into the dark hole separating her room from Jesse’s, indecision holding her captive. It would be so easy to run to him now. To stroke his hand just to feel the blanket of reassurance that came with his touch.

  “No,” she whispered, instead forcing her feet to move in the direction of her bathroom.

  She wouldn’t be dependent on any man, not even the one from her visions. Because vision or no, one day he’d leave. Everyone always did.

  Once inside, she quietly closed the door and leaned against it, only then daring to flip the switch next to her. Harsh light flooded the room, bouncing off the mirror that reflected exactly what she had known it would. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks blotched from having cried through the end of the dream-vision and from the terror she’d just experienced.

  A splash of cold water to her face brought her fully awake. She dried off, burying her head in the scratchy cloth of the nearest towel. By the time she looked back into the mirror she’d come to her first decision.

  The clue to her sister’s whereabouts was to be found in her email. Since Leah’s disappearance, Destiny hadn’t let her laptop out of her sight for more than a few minutes. Every scrap of information, every tiny clue, was in that machine’s memory.

  She felt lost without it, as if her lifeline had been severed. She needed that laptop, and first thing tomorrow she was going back for it, no matter how angry it meant making the man sleeping in that dark room next door.

  Chapter 7

  “The pain was excruciating.”

  Adira Ré Alyn tightened her fingers around the telephone receiver in her hand, fighting to rein in her temper and moderate what she wanted to say to the whining man on the other end of this call.

  “Yes, Dermond, I’m sure you’ve suffered horribly.”

  She didn’t doubt his sincerity for a moment. There had been a time, so very long ago, when their men had been fierce warriors. Before they’d been banished to the Mortal Plain. Before they’d been stripped of their magic.

  It had been eons since any of her people had experienced physical pain. In those long years, they’d grown soft. Pathetic. Weak.

  Dermond AÍ Tyrn, for all his beauty and brawn, was no exception. Only his simpleminded devotion to her encouraged her to keep him around.

  “You’ve found no trace of the girl? No clue to the identity of the one who interfered?”

  The lack of anger in her voice was a true testament to her own strength of will. Dermond’s incompetence had cost her the prize she sought.

  “Only her belongings at the carnival grounds and here in her room. As to the Mortal who helped her, I don’t think he was anything more than some armed biker who’d seen too many action movies.”

  He sounded like a petulant child, his feelings obviously hurt by her lack of concern for him.

  Adira bit back an impatient sigh. The males of her species seemed to have developed such fragile egos, always requiring reassurance. Not so very long ago, a failure such as his would have met with certain punishment, not the coddling he seemed to expect from her now.

  Still, times had changed. Dermond was beautiful to behold, and since the disappearance of her chosen mate, Reynard Servans, he was her favorite lover.

  “Bring her things to me, my poor darling. And don’t give those two another thought for now. We’ll make them suffer for what they did to you. We’ll find them, and when we do, we’ll terminate the intruder for his interference. Does that make you feel better?”

  “It does.” His voice had changed with his pleasure, taking on the low, rumbling quality she so enjoyed. “Do you miss me… my queen?”

  Ah, it took so little to make him happy, and once done, he was again eager to please her. Perhaps that more than anything else made him her favorite.

  “I do, my darling. Hurry back to me.”

  Placing the telephone on her dressing table, she turned to stare at her reflection in the richly carved full-length mirror and realized with a start that she actually did miss Dermond.

  Or more accurately, she missed what he did for her. To her. Just thinking of him, the hard planes of his body, the low rumble of his voice, the moist heat of his breath on her skin, filled her with an aching need.

  Sex had been the focus of her entire adult life, but she’d never realized its pleasures until she’d come into her own. Having the power to control others was a heady aphrodisiac.

  Lightly she ran her open palms across her stomach and up to her breasts, her nipples already hardened and sensitive beneath the sheer robe she wore.

  Perhaps she’d consider inviting Flynn to her bed this night. He hadn’t the skill or the breeding of Dermond, but he would do.

  She loosened the sash of her robe, allowing the sides to flutter open, pleased with the sight of her own body. Still firm and unmarked after all these centuries.

  Aided, of course, by the blood of her young captive.

  She’d experimented with so many over the past year, and then, as much by accident as the initial discovery of what blood could do for her, she’d found this girl, Leah.

  Leah, who was undoubtedly a half-breed Fae.

  For centuries, Reynard had searched the world over for women of Fae descent, always hoping to use them to find his way back into their homeland, the Realm of Faerie.

  He’d had it half right.

  Adira had no desire to return home. She’d had nothing there save pain and sorrow. But here, with her new knowledge, she would one day soon rule all within her reach.

  For some reason, all the Faerie powers that had been stripped from the world of man were returning. Not to the full-blooded Fae who’d been exiled to this world, but to the half-Mortal descendants of Fae.

  What a joke. She almost wished she could see the Earth Mother’s face when that impotent bitch learned how all her scheming had come to this. Her plans had failed.

  Now, just as Reynard had, she would search out those gifted half-breeds, but unlike him, she had no desire to seek the portals that separated their worlds. She planned to soak up their gifts by taking their blood.

  Only a little at a time, of course.

  Thank the Fates, she’d learned on those others that it required only a few drops of blood to effect the changes in her own body. It would have been such a shame to lose something as valuable as Leah to those early experiments.

  Worse even than failing to capture the girl’s sister.

  If one young woman had the gift to heal, what delightful gift might she be able to claim from the elusive sister?

  Dermond’s failure to hold on to Destiny was only a small setback. If they couldn’t bring her here by force, perhaps they could lure her to them.

  Face flushed with the excitement of her plans, Adira reached for a small ivory-handled feather brush, dabbing it into her perfumed powder before trailing it down her neck, across her breast, and around her hardened nipple.

  “Oh!”

  The intense pleasure of the light stroke tore the gasp from her lips.

  There was no longer any question. She would definitely invite Flynn to her bed tonight.

  Dropping the brush, she rolled the darkened nipple between her fingers, letting go to slide her hand down her flat stomach to the curve of her inner thigh.

  The heat from within her body caressed her hand, beckoning her to continue.

  With one foot propped on the mirror’s raised leg, her slim fingers poised at her moist opening. Her reflection fascinated her, her building desire evident in her hooded eyes, her reddened cheeks, her skin so…

  Damn.

  Adira tossed back her long red curls and leaned closer to the mirror.

  “Damn!” she hissed.

  The age lines had returned to the corners of her eyes. This would never do.

  Time for another visit with her little guest. A drop or two of the precious half-breed blood and the wrinkles would be long gone before she satisfied herself with Flynn later this evening.

  Chapter 8

  Eight o’clock. The woman slept like the dead.

  Not that she was. Jesse knew because he’d checked earlier, prowling over to listen to her breathing, steady and regular.

  He sipped his coffee as he leaned against the doorframe separating their two rooms, studying the unmoving figure huddled in the bed.

  Destiny lay curled around a pillow, her arms clutching the bag of feathers like a drowning woman hanging on to the boat’s last life preserver. Her covers had been flung to one side as if she’d fought a mighty battle, kicking them away into a heap.

  And those curvy bared legs? They were the kind that had obviously inspired man to invent high heels and miniskirts.

  Another sip of coffee, the dark liquid flowing down his throat, bringing a flush of heat to his skin. It was the coffee making him so warm, wasn’t it?

  Just his damned luck the first time he went off the grid to help someone behind the company’s back, she’d turned out to be a sexy-as-hell Faerie descendant being chased by a mutant Nuadian. Then again, maybe it was more than luck. Dallyn had counseled the Guardians more than once about the rise of Faerie magic in the Mortal World. He’d also spoken about the numbers of Faerie descendants.

  There lay his proof, curled up on the bed in front of him. All five feet, four glorious inches of her.

  He’d heard her last night. At first he’d thought it might be the wind as it picked up, the leading edge of the hurricane Peter had warned him was headed their way.

  But he’d been wrong. It had been Destiny, moaning in her sleep, the sounds followed a short while later by bare feet padding around the room and the click of her bathroom door. After the nightmares she’d apparently had, it wasn’t any wonder she still slept.

  No! No more Mr. Nice Guy.

  The gloves were off today. He would not be sucked into feeling sorry for her again. He was getting his answers, and damn soon, too. They didn’t have time to hang out here while she wasted the day sleeping. If she didn’t wake soon, he’d be dragging her ass out of that bed and she’d be talking in short order.

  He emptied the last gulp of coffee from his cup, but made no effort to move from his spot by the door.

  Yep. That’s exactly what he’d do. Any minute now.

  Instead of crossing to the bed, he eased his phone from his pocket, flipping it open with one hand, punching the necessary buttons to once again pull up the information Peter had sent him last night.

  In addition to the missing sixteen-year-old sister, Destiny had a younger brother, born in between the two girls.

  Chase Noble. Whereabouts unknown.

  Jesse might be tempted to think that running away was a family trait if not for the encounter with that Nuadian Fae bent on nabbing Destiny last night. There was much more here than initially met the eye. First and foremost, the question was why the Fae would want Leah Noble. Or Destiny, for that matter.